Well this was a pretty satisfactory conclusion to a promising opening episode. In this respect, we're not let down by a rushed or silly climax as with most of new Who's two parters. This story delivers what it promises and nothing more than that. Dalek Seck is a wonderful creation, excellently realised, brilliantly voiced, and in the end, a quite compelling anti-hero and convincing petitioner of the Doctor - with this new slant on a possible re-moralisation of the Daleks, we have arguably the most compelling dilemma for the Doctor since Genesis of the Daleks. I think he also opts for the right decision in this case - but of course is thwarted - as is Seck - by rebelling Daleks who inevitably grow restless at their new corporeal leader, as they once did many times with Davros (speaking of whom, surely the ground is being laid for an eventual re-encounter?).

The disturbing suggestion that we humans might have potential to become Daleks ourselves, to degenerate morally as the Kaleds did back on Skaro, seems worryingly un-far-fetched considering our race managed to produce the Nazis, and that the world in general has been becoming more and more reactionary and territorial over the last quarter of a century. A good moral lesson for our times, which is what Who does best. I would have liked this thread to have been taken further: for a new score of Daleks to have been made from humans just to emphasize this point more. Rather like the - albeit somewhat pointless given its parallel Earth setting - plot of Rise of the Cybermen, it would have been nice to have had the human race mimicking the Kaleds and making Daleks of their own - but the suggestions were there, which is something still to think on.

The flying Daleks were impressive, the finale too, with a new short-lived half-human breed of Timelords courtesy of the Doctor's DNA interception of the process - quite a nice little twist, though not entirely unpredictable.

Tennant has generally been on his best form for some time during the last three episodes. Long may it stay that way.

Overall, not quite a classic, but a solid and very old Who-style romp, with philosophical sprinklings and an interesting development of Dalekology (hence a very apt title for this episode). The best two parter since Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, though by merit of its fairly well-balanced two episodes (in that neither is significantly better than the other), it is comparable to Empty Child/Doctor Dances in that respect, and light years above Risable of the Cybermen from last year. This season is going from strength to strength since the surprise minor classic Gridlock - let's hope there are no more Smith and Jones's and Shakespeare Codes along the way to undermine this momentum.

6/10

Evolution of the Daleks is an episode that barely takes a moment to breathe. Immediately we are thrown into a good old-fashioned Dalek corridor chase, sublimely complemented by Murray Gold's epic score. Within just a few minutes marauding pig-slaves and flying Daleks besiege Hooverville. And within just a few minutes more the human part of Sec is beginning to take hold.

"We must return to the flesh and to the heart."

With her script for this episode, Helen Raynor has done almost as good a job as Rob Shearman did with "Dalek" in how she presents the Dalek race in a new and fascinating way. I say 'almost as good' because I think that Shearman had a slightly harder job in trying to make us feel compassion for a 'traditional' Dalek; Raynor at least has a humanoid Dalek.

"Observe humanity. For all their faults, they have courage."

Having watched "Daleks In Manhattan", it seemed pretty obvious to me that the three Daleks were going to turn on Sec. In my head I imagined a Davros / Daleks "Genesis of the Daleks" type finish, but never did I imagine that events would play out in the way that they did. I was somewhat taken aback by just how far Raynor pushed Sec ? within two episodes he goes from the fiendish leader of an evil Dalek cult to an almost whiter-than-white visionary.

This created a lovely dilemma for the Doctor ? should he help him?

In all his incarnations the Doctor has been an unstoppable moral force. He has always done what he believed to be the right thing or what he believed to be for the greater good. But usually the audience, scrutinising the Doctor's decisions from outside the box, can clearly see what the right moral choice is or was. Watching "Evolution of the Daleks" though, I honestly didn't have a clue. Thousands of frozen humans, completely brain-dead. Should the Doctor let Sec use their empty husks as vessels for a new, tamer Dalek race? Talk about the difficult decisions?

"He is an enemy of the Daleks? and so are you! You have lost your authority. You are no longer a Dalek! You taught us to imagine and we imagined your irrelevance."

Predictable as it may have been, the recalcitrant Daleks' eventual insurrection certainly didn't lack impact. The image of Sec being forced to crawl in chains ahead of Thay and Jast is certainly an enduring one, and Sec 'taking the bullet' for the Doctor is an almost equally powerful moment. I love the shot of the death ray illuminating Sec's cyclopic skull. Beautiful.

What I found really entertaining though, was seeing Caan, Thay and Jast plotting, scheming and bitching about Sec. I loved the way that their domes would swivel around 360? as if they were looking over their shoulders, scared of getting caught! Fantastic.

Turning to the man himself for a moment, I've been a fan of David Tennant throughout his reign ? he had me won over by the end of "The Christmas Invasion" ? but in this episode I couldn't help but be dumbfounded by the sheer gravity of his performance. Following hot on the heels of Solomon's touching and eloquent speech during the attack on Hooverville was certainly an unenviable task, but the Doctor's plea to the Dalek to kill him seemed worryingly heartfelt. It was almost as if the Doctor wanted to die, and were it not for the compassion of Sec he would have. And it doesn't end there.

The scene atop the Empire State Building is regeneration-worthy. When the lightning struck the tenth Doctor's body I would have written him off had I not seen clips from later episodes! There is something about the Daleks that brings out the best ? and worst ? of the Doctor, and in "Evolution of the Daleks" it is more evident than ever.

"Never waste time on a hug!"

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have noticed this new little phrase creeping in to the Doctor's vocab - this and bloody "Allons-y." I noticed this saying first in Stephen Cole's tie-in novel "Sting of the Zygons," and it stood out again here. It's as if the Doctor is regressing to his pre-Rose state. He's closing up.

"?he looks at me and I just sort of think, he's not seeing me. He's just remembering."

Poor Martha?.

The spaghetti western-style showdown between the Doctor and Caan was the highlight of the episode for me. The last of the Daleks and the last of the Time Lords? again. The scene mirrored not only that fateful meeting between the ninth Doctor and the Dalek in Van Statten's museum, but also the final battle of wits between the seventh Doctor and the Dalek Supreme in "Remembrance of the Daleks."

Bar one pivotal difference.

"Caan, let me help you. What do you say?"

With pale red eyes and the emotion in his voice barely kept in check, the tenth Doctor looked upon the last Dalek in existence and offered it mercy. The Daleks might commit genocide at the drop of the hat, but not the Doctor. Not anymore, at least. He's become a better man. The man who once vaporised Skaro's sun offers the olive branch to Dalek Caan, and what does he say?

"Emergency temporal shift!"

And when all was said and done, Helen Raynor had one last uplifting surprise in store for us. Lazlo and Tellulah. The Pig and the Showgirl. The Pig with a tragically short life span? were it not for the intervention of a Time Lord.

"Oh Tellulah with three l's and an h! Just you watch me!"

And they all lived happily ever after? well, they both lived happily ever after. Hardly "Everybody Lives!", but it still has the same sort of feel-good resonance.

And so once again I have nothing but praise for all concerned in the production of this week's magnificent episode of Doctor Who - bar a couple of minor gripes?

Why was the grand 'Invasion of Manhattan' confined to a sewer and a backstreet theatre?

Since when were Daleks made of Dalekanium? The last I heard, Dalekanium was an explosive! Whatever happened to bonded polycarbide armour?

I believe that this is called clutching at straws.

Next week I promise I'll try to tear "The Lazarus Experiment" to shreds.

Promise.

A pleasing - albeit solid, rather than spectacular - conclusion to the first two-parter of Series 3. The pattern in the previous two series has been for the later two-parters in the season to be generally perceived by fans to be superior to the first - that was certainly my view - and I suspect that will prove the case this time round.

There was plenty to like about Evolution, particularly from the Daleks themselves and The Doctor, but not much to suggest it was anything out of the ordinary. I would stop short of calling it "predictable" but, if there was a disappointment in the adventure, it was a lack of the "wow" factor - there wasn't much there to take even the casual viewer by surprise.

However, what was on view was delivered extremely efficiently from script to screen, and made for another enjoyable watch to continue the high standard maintained by the season to date.

The episode began with the human Dalek Sec appreciating his new form in the sewers under New York, and looking forward to the creation of a new race of hybrid Daleks - though the rest of The Cult Of Skaro are quick to privately express doubts about their leader's plans.

The Doctor leads Martha, Talullah and Frank back to Hooverville, but they're pursued by the pig slaves and two of the Daleks, who callously exterminate Hooverville's leader, Soloman, despite his pleas for clemency. Sec orders them to spare the rest of the humans in exchange for The Doctor's assistance in helping him to create his new race - he already has the "husks" of 1000 humans awaiting implementation of Dalek DNA - and take them to another planet.

The Doctor believes Sec has been influenced by humanity, and agrees to help, but the other Daleks have made alternative plans. They foil Sec and The Doctor's plans by instilling pure Dalek ideals into the human bodies, which will come to life when the Daleks' genetic laboratory is powered up via an energy conductor containing Dalekanium at the top of the Empire State Building.

The Doctor escapes (again) with the help of Talullah's boyfriend, Laszlo, a half-converted pig slave, and heads for the Empire State. Martha is already at the top, with Talullah and Frank, having worked out that is where The Doctor wanted her to head.

When lightning strikes the Daleks' conductor at the top of the Empire State, The Doctor is there and, although he isn't able to stop the new human Daleks coming to life, his own DNA is infused into them as a result.

The Doctor and his companions confront two of the Daleks in Talullah's theatre. The Daleks exterminate Sec, and invite their new human recruits to do the same to The Doctor. However, the human Daleks question the need to kill, and a battle between them and the Daleks ensue. The latter are eliminated, and Dalek Caan, monitoring events back in the laboratory, destroys the human Daleks, to The Doctor's horror.

The Doctor confronts Caan - now the last of the Daleks - who uses the Emergency Temporal Shift to escape . . .

The ailing Laszlo is saved by The Doctor, who is determined no-one else will die, and given a home in the Hooverville camp.

As we know, "they (the Daleks) always survive" but is The Doctor's closing confirmation to Martha that he will meet Dalek Caan again "one day" an indication that we will see Caan again later in this season? And was another apparently-innocuous line mentioning the Daleks' creator (albeit not by name) mean that a Davros return could also be the cards? That would certainly give another dimension to a Dalek episode.

That was achieved here - the interaction between members of The Cult Of Skaro was particularly fascinating. You didn't have to be a nuclear scientist to work out the other Daleks weren't going to tolerate their leader's plans for evolution, and there was even room for sympathy towards the hybrid Dalek, chained up and ultimately exterminated.

Another highlight was Soloman's speech to the airborne Daleks falling on deaf eyestalks, and being met with instant extermination - underlining that, ability to think for themselves or not, Daleks' core instincts are to destroy anything which is not like them.

But it's always a thrill to see a Dalek adventure and, though it's my view this was the weakest story of the four to feature them since the series came back, that had plenty to do with the quality of the other stories. We have done "the last Dalek" story with Rob Shearman's Series 1 tale, so one would assume Caan's return wouldn't replicate that.

Helen Raynor did an excellent job on by far her biggest TV writing assignment, but she isn't Russell T Davies or Steven Moffat. Although Raynor's script-editing experience on the show would have been a major help in the structuring of the episode - and the plot was certainly sound and very easy to follow - there was a lack of that little bit of additional sparkle which those two great, seasoned writers bring to their characters. Having said that, Raynor's script was assisted by David Tennant in particular being absolutely brilliant. You could give this guy the phone book to read, and he'd have you captivated. He had a good script here, with a lot of material, but lifted it up a level with his delivery, energy - and sheer quality. Tennant is arguably now Doctor Who's biggest single asset, and I would be very surprised if the list of his doubters weren't disintegrating by the episode.

Freema Agyeman continues to impress alongside, and Martha Jones had more of a role here than last week. In fact, she was very Rose-like when split from The Doctor and had to use her initiative to help with the foiling of the Daleks' plans. Although The Doctor is now clearly appreciating her intelligence and usefulness, it is still apparent that she doesn't exist to him in any romantic form. Not so much as a casual glance. Martha, on the other hand, evidently has the serious hots for her travelling companion, which I'm sure will be expanded upon when they return to present-day Earth next week. Martha's sadness at her unrequited feelings is making her a character easily empathised with.

It's going to be difficult for guest artistes to catch the eye with such focus - rightly - on the show's stars and sadly, Miranda Raison, who made a good impression as Talullah in the previous episode, was more of a bit-part player here.

A couple of impressive - and expensive - battle scenes were well realised by director James Strong and the various effects teams, particularly in the Hooverville camp, and I love Murray Gold's anthemic Dalek music.

No real complaints here - more Day Of The Daleks than Genesis probably, but that's no shame, and a steady seven and a half out of 10 for both episodes combined.

Sadly, that was a bit of a disappointment after last week's slightly flawed but impressively atmospheric build up. Instead of an homage to 'The Island Of Doctor Moreau' this episode seemed to take a very surreal and cliched journey into 'The Dalek Horror Picture Show' and I was half expecting to see the hybrid Sec break into a rendition of 'Let's Do The Time Warp Again'. Nice spats, shame about the face.

And just as I thought I was getting involved in the plot, various story and directing decisions kept lifting me out of the episode. The locked off camera shots of the Daleks gliding about the sewer tunnels, whilst an attempt to give us something different visually, didn't quite work for me. They had an artificial quality to them that perhaps underlined the schizophrenia of the episode for me. A kind of bizarre artifice that kept cropping up ? the repetitive sequences of the Doctor and the Daleks in confrontation and their continual threat/avoidance to kill him; Solomon's speech to the Dalek ('War Of The Worlds' anyone or was that a nod to the assassination of Martin Luther King?) that seemed like an attempt at Oscar nomination and didn't really have any truth in it as a scene bar for the long awaited extermination; those odd dissolves of the marching human Daleks that tried to convince you an army was on the march; the curing of Laszlo that seemed to happen off screen after the Doctor has stirred up a few phials of something?I just found these choices a bit bizarre.

What you expected to happen?did happen, right down to the inevitable 'emergency temporal shift' of Caan at the conclusion of the story. For me it committed the cardinal sin of relying on the 'reset button' mode of storytelling. Tie up all the loose ends in the last ten minutes and bring the overall narrative back to square one as if the events over the last two episodes didn't really have any major effect on any of the characters lives or situations. I don't mind that kind of storytelling as long as it's an engaging and interesting journey back to the beginning. Here we get mass exterminations and genetic experimentation and the Doctor and Martha making a crass joke about 'the pig and the showgirl' as they nip off to pastures new.

The ultimate 'Rocky Horror' moment for me was the confrontation in the theatre. All of a sudden, the Daleks arrive on stage, bathed in smoke and bad lighting, and they cease being fascist xenophobes and just look like something out of 'Seven Keys To Doomsday'. All that careful build up in the first part of the story, with the flashes of 'Evil Of The Daleks', just dissipated away by reducing them to vaudeville props. It seemed such a 'small' scene to conclude what was originally something conceived as, and looking like, an epic. And logically it didn't make sense for Caan to order the two Daleks to kill all the slaves and then wait until they're blown up to decide to self-destruct the slaves anyway!

The best scenes in the episode were the attack on Hooverville and the 'Frankenstein' laboratory pastiche of the resurrection of the human Daleks. Both were epic, thrilling scenes and visually engaging. The destruction of Hooverville was especially spectacular. The story was also full of good ideas and humour. The two Daleks in the tunnel having a bit of a gossip about the hybrid and looking behind them to see if they're being overheard and the pig guards going up in the lift with their obvious impatience were amusing scenes. The nod to 'Are You Being Served?' with the Doctor's 'first floor?perfumery' quip and Tallulah's 'gammon strike' comment also managed to raise a laugh.

What also might have been better dramatically was perhaps to have had the Doctor's attempt to evolve the Daleks be thwarted not by the other Daleks, but by Martha sabotaging the mast (with the best intentions, as she'd be unaware of what was going on and would end up maintaining the Daleks original nature). But instead it fell back into the clich? of the other Daleks putting a spanner in the works which was crudely, if humourously, set up earlier.

Freema also got a bit more to get her teeth into this time and to see Martha putting together a plan to electrocute the pig guards (despite being a bit iffy on the science) was a great opportunity to show how resourceful the character can be. However, I think it's time the series moved on from the Rose references now and didn't keep resorting to using Martha's unrequited love in the face of the Doctor's emotional fragility as development. It's getting repetitive and isn't moving the dynamic between the characters forward enough.

This week, I'm afraid David Tennant turned into the 'shouty' version of the Doctor that I seemed to have trouble with in Series 2. On the occasions where he's here confronting hybrid Sec and/or the Daleks his indignation with them just gets played too broadly which is a shame as in the first three episodes of this year's series he's been pretty much on the mark and has provided a more contained display of anger and righteousness. I'm also slightly troubled by the Doctor's moral position here. In 'Genesis Of The Daleks' he doesn't commit genocide because he realises he'd be just as bad as the Daleks and that a greater good will come from their existence. Here, he merrily sides with hybrid Sec to change the entire 'raison d'etre' of the Dalek species without a qualm. A tad na?ve of him surely? Here, for Sec, it would seem humanity equals goodness but humans are also capable of evil, destruction and war.

Overall, it looked spectacular but the illogic of some of the plotting, some of the odd directorial choices and an over-repetition of Doctor/Dalek confrontation clich? made it a less effective episode than the first part. Its plunge into surreal 'Rocky Horror' B movie territory, whilst a template that is suitable to the material and its themes of mad science and 1930s Gothic noir, doesn't do any favours to the emotional power needed for the characters to operate in the scale of this story. It felt flat despite all the best efforts.

The Daleks are a triumph of design, a futurist alien vehicle that quickly became a pop culture emblem of swinging Britain, and from that point on a little piece of everyone's childhood. As an alien race, however, they're pretty bog-standard. Survivors of a dying planet stripped of their humanity and emotion and encased inside a powerful metal body: conceptually, you could barely get a cigarette paper between Daleks and Cybermen. Personality wise, all they ever really do is plot, kill, gripe about the Doctor and want to dominate the universe, just like 70% of Doctor Who aliens.

For this reason, I wasn't up in arms when Daleks In Manhattan tinkered a little with the mythology of the Daleks last week ? they're a decidedly limited concept anyway, so anything to make them a tad more interesting is always welcome. On the flip side, this week's attempt to spend 45 minutes delving into the psychology of what are essentially little tanks with laser guns for me resulted in crushing boredom.

Daleks In Manhattan was an entertaining Old Who style romp, maybe the closest in spirit and feel to the classic series as we've seen so far. By contrast, Evolution Of The Daleks was perhaps the flattest and most dispiriting slice of Doctor Who since Battlefield. It seems to be tradition now that Dalek/Cybermen two-parters consist of a fascinating first episode followed by an ineffectual run-around in place of a satisfying pay-off. I enjoyed both Rise Of The Cybermen and especially Army Of Ghosts, but was unimpressed by Age Of Steel and especially Doomsday.

Like the 'Cartmel Masterplan' episodes of the late 1980s, there was too much crammed clumsily into the limited running time, and what started in episode 1 as an interesting and satirical period piece degenerated into a hokey mishmash of Frankenstein, King Kong, Back To The Future, Ghostbusters and the 1930s Saturday matinee serials. This in itself wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but the pacing was so off that it all came across as a joyless series of misfiring set pieces with no one coming out of it particularly well.

The Doctor fared particularly badly, despite David Tennant's typically sterling work. Twice he offered himself for up extermination? once is careless, twice is just tiresome and dramatically flat. Quite what he hoped to achieve is beyond me, blind self-sacrifice being something of an unDoctorly trait. Since he constantly champions himself as the Daleks' worst nightmare, quite what good he would be to anyone dead is a mystery. Admittedly, the second time he was prompting the Dalek hybrids to rebel, but it was something of a leap of faith that they would, and an even bigger leap of faith that the real Daleks wouldn't just go right ahead and exterminate him anyway. And why was he so enraged and indignant when the Daleks killed all the pigmen and human hybrids? Was he expecting them not to? All things considered, it was pretty much par for the Dalek course. To make it a hat-trick of bad Doctoring, he stood back and allowed poor misguided Solomon to be exterminated. If anyone knows you can't appeal to the good in a Dalek it should be our Doc, so I have no idea what he was playing at.

The Daleks themselves sadly have regressed back to Remembrance Of The Daleks standards (albeit not so wobbly on their feet): lots of shouting about exterminating, but rarely actually getting around to doing any of it. The only reason the Doctor survived this episode was that the old fellahs have become such chronic procrastinators.

Not a great episode for Martha either, I'm afraid. She had been growing on me as a companion, but in this episode Freema Agyeman seemed to be struggling to convince with the dialogue she'd been lumbered with (both she and Miranda Raison as Tallulah wresting with diction problems during their scenes together). Her girlie chat about Rose was toe-curling.

Special mention must also go to the baffling moment in which the Doctor retrieves his sonic screwdriver ? apparently, unless I misheard the dialogue, Martha somehow managed to catch it half way down the Empire State Building. Really?

Another big up for humans here, yay for us! Apparently, if you give a Dalek a dose of humanity, it'll start questioning orders and being all nice and conscientious. All well and good, but if history has taught us anything, it's that there's nothing humans like doing more than following orders and committing atrocities. (The Doctor puts the disobedience of the robomen down to a shot of Time Lord DNA, but as that would have been impossible to achieve through mere electrical conductivity, we have to assume he's talking baloney).

In a better episode, this would all be nit-picking. Unfortunately, as dramatic television, it was terribly flaccid and unoriginal, with the Doctor yet again scaling a mast in a thunderstorm (see The Idiot Box) and a major landmark lighting up (see pretty much everything). Packed with ideas and plot threads, none of them were given sufficient room to breathe, resulting in one long 45-minute soggy squib.

Mind you, I did like the perfumery line.

"Gridlock" ? at times very impressive, beautiful even, yet tainted with frustration and a sense of "what might have been".

I've read many reviews on Outpost Gallifrey in the last year or two, and only now have I found it necessary to add my own thoughts to the mix. I've not felt compelled to write a review before this and I'm still not sure what has encouraged it now. Suffice it to say that "Gridlock" had the hallmarks of being a great story, in the mould of say "The Impossible Planet" or "Father's Day", yet niggles which seem to have developed over the last season or so have dogged what could have been a firm favourite.

Let's start with the good points then. The obvious first one is the continued excellence of David Tennant. Someone recently wrote in the press that he's dangerously close to becoming the definitive Doctor, and I have to say I agree with this estimate. Tennant conveys each facet of the Doctor's personality with equal ease. The humour he displays at certain points through his interactions with even the minor characters he encounters in his quest to reach the fast lane is balanced with the anger he shows at the "mood sellers" encountered early on in the episode. Tennant is excellent at the anger. We've certainly moved on from the Sylvester McCoy days? Whereas Christopher Eccleston's Doctor seemed to use anger as his raison d'etre, Tennant's Doctor is more sparing here, the occasional outbursts seeming more effective than a permanent coil of what seemed to be the Ninth Doctor's resentment at his life. Of course this is probably best explained within the context of the overarching storyline. Eccleston's Doctor had witnessed first hand ? or so we are led to believe ? the Time War. The anger, profound shock and frustration built up seemed to be mixed with a fear that maybe the power to regenerate had been lost. Now that the Doctor has changed again, there seems to be a new found optimism that things are returning to the Doctor's favour ? he can regenerate, he can defeat villains and monsters and so on. But this is digression. David Tennant has tapped into the Doctor's character so successfully and so effectively blends all aspects of this together in what is such a powerhouse performance, that you tend to forget he had nine predecessors. You simply cannot take your eyes from the screen when he's on as there's always something happening ? he's an electric presence, and yet alien at the same time. I know how he does it ? good acting, but it's a revelation every week. I'm reminded of feeling like I'm back at school again watching Tom Baker ? it's very strange. I must admit to trepidation when I heard Tennant was succeeding Eccleston; I was hoping we'd finally get an old Doctor again, and I still think the late lamented Ian Richardson would have made a superb Doctor, but there you go! When you watch the final scenes of Gridlock, when the Doctor talks about Gallifrey, you almost physically see inside his head and gain some sense of wonder, sadness and loss. Was I the only viewer who thought, "hang on, he's going to cry"? A powerful moment, beautifully acted, and beautifully written by Russell T Davies.

Add to this Freema Agyeman's performance and you start to see, if you've not already done so, why this Doctor and companion work so well. She's extremely assured as Martha, and a superb foil for the Doctor. Agyeman's confidence shines through in every scene, and the different dynamic to the Tennant-Piper relationship is highlighted by her greater pragmatism. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I can't help feeling that her faith in the Doctor is going to be shattered by the end of the season ? is she going to react to the Daleks in much the same way as Tegan Jovanka did, or will she become a victim of the expected end of season revelations and be treated in the same way as Ace in "The Curse of Fenric"? (Look it up newbies?). It's early days though and Agyeman makes Martha such a likeable character that again, you tend to forget Rose? My only concern is that Russell T Davies might reintroduce the family again ? I wasn't keen on the Tylers, and I'm not sure the Joneses will be much better, but let's reserve judgment for now.

Perhaps the other excellent point in the episode was the use of music. I know Murray Gold comes in for a lot of criticism on this site for his "intrusive" music, but I think in this episode he seemed to get the balance right. I'm a massive fan of his theme arrangement - an orchestral version was long overdue ? and here the use of hymns was a beautiful counterpoint to the action, without being overly cloying. All right "Abide with Me" was perhaps a little obvious for the final monologue, but the arrangements were simply exquisite and fitted perfectly. The visuals and the music at the end of the episode were simply excellent, and show how far the show has progressed under the modern stewardship. Full marks also for the stand-out turn by Ardal O'Hanlon as Brannigan; although he was really Thermoman in a cat-suit, he's always likeable, and it would be good to see him return. I'm not sure what everyone else made of him, and perhaps he should have been given a greater role to play within the story, but that's the problem with trying to complete a story in 45 minutes.

And there's the problem in a nutshell. 45 minutes. I was OK until about an hour after the episode, until my subconscious came up, tapped me on the shoulder and said "But what about the Macra?" I'm sure I must have missed something ? and maybe I'll have to watch the repeat, but I'm certain the Doctor just saved the people trapped on the motorway and left the Macra to it! Five minutes to save the world ? let's do what we can seems to be the motto now. All right, maybe the lack of fumes from the traffic would mean the Macra would die anyway, but it seemed that this aspect of the story was rushed. No doubt I'll have started a flame war on these pages now from the forum writers telling me to concentrate, but that's life? Patrick Troughton's Doctor ? or any other Doctor ? would have made sure that the Macra were thoroughly removed. It might have taken four episodes to do it, but the job would be done. My concern here is the speed at which the current stories run. OK, we'll never have six episodes of corridor running, thank heaven, but I think one episode is too short a length for a number of stories, and Gridlock was a case in point. Some stories are perfectly suited to one episode, "The Idiot's Lantern" or "Father's Day" for example, whereas two episodes was a perfect length for "The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit". I just felt the balance was wrong here. It deserved a cliffhanger which would have allowed the action to move from the motorway to other parts of New York. A cliffhanger also allows of course for the dramatic possibility that the Doctor might not just throw a switch and win ? he might have to make sacrifices or really have to think about how best to defeat the monsters. The honour (and the great benefit for youngsters watching) is in the fact that sometimes it IS hard to defeat the enemies, but you grow stronger for doing so, and learn in the process. The Doctor shouldn't really be glib and be able to knock a solution up in five minutes.

Unfortunately I thought the re-introduction of the Macra was wasted. There was nothing really for the Doctor to "confront" as such ? villains or monsters always seem to work better when there's been the direct give-and-take between them and the Doctor. A faceless monster which had no interaction with the Doctor has only really worked a couple of times ? most notably in "Fury from the Deep", ironically again from the Troughton era. Much better perhaps to have reintroduced the Yeti or even the Ice Warriors?

The 45-minute format is too short I think to tell some of the stories which are being told. Far better I think for the production team to have the confidence now to push for 16 episode seasons, have say 6 double episodes with the occasional single episode story. So many of the stories written during the new series have deserved longer screen time, and I think that without being over-critical of Russell T Davies ? he who is the golden-egg laying goose ? his ideas deserve longer expression over two episodes. There are almost too many ideas competing for attention, and I think maybe an editorial re-think is needed. And if Russell's reading this, no-one has yet written a more tense half an hour in the new series yet than in "Bad Wolf" with Rose's supposed death and the reintroduction of the Daleks ? "We have your associate" is still the best line in the new series for me - written so well and delivered with such venom that it makes you feel 12 again, which is what it's all about.

Other negatives ? the nagging feeling to older viewers like me who barely struggled to escape the late 1980s episodes that it's all becoming a bit derivative. I know that's like saying the Grand National's derivative as it always uses the same course, but it's getting easier to spot the origins of each episode. "Gridlock" had a strong smell of "Paradise Towers" left on the shelf for just a bit too long, whereas I was thinking "It's the Unquiet Dead again" during "The Shakespeare Code". Let's have some more variety ? we're big enough and ugly enough to take it. We must cater for the younger viewers of course, and I know we're not going to get Chekhov at 7pm on a Saturday evening, but let's have a couple of real thrillers with some good cliffhangers, political thrillers, or a few more psychological dramas.
We're so nearly there. Just a few tweaks needed, and we can start talking seriously about Golden Ages?